


Bound

by AngriestPotato



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hate Sex, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Miscarriage, Suicidal Ideation, comfort comes way later tho, filler Hanamura characters, nothing active but of the 'if i was dead i wouldn't have to worry about this' variety
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2020-03-02 14:15:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18812596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngriestPotato/pseuds/AngriestPotato
Summary: Being under the protection of the Shimada clan meant doing what you could to maintain peace, which may include being engaged to the heir, once upon a time. You didn't really know him and he didn't really know you either, so he must've felt no guilt leaving you in the dirt with the rest of his family.But Hanzo's not an heir anymore and you're part of a different clan so maybe it should be time to sever whatever bond is left between you. A decade later, under another name, you might have the chance to either pay back every humiliation or finally understand the man who killed his brother and changed all your lives for good.





	1. coincidences

**Author's Note:**

> I'm finally rewriting this after a year, now I actually have a plan so it does go somewhere I promise.

Hanamura was not the type of city to change, it simply switched hands.

Many of its inhabitants seemed to be obsessed with a romantic notion of fate, but even you, years into a drought of belief, had witnessed it for yourself; Hanamura had held surprisingly well against the Omnic Crisis, and it had flourished alongside the criminal activity that funded its modernity, with Shimada castle –unchanging and ancient, “eternal” the clan used to call it– watching over it like a proud little lighthouse. Never really a home but a signifier of power, the riches of an empire doomed. 

Even now that the Shimada, with their titles and their standing, no longer existed; the city held on as if it had been foretold to stand whatever tragedy might befall it.

You, however, had long ago taken to imagining its downfall. The life that had been promised so bright to you ended up in this; haunting Kasahara palace’s halls like a shadow caught through paper screens, and you would very much like to stop, _permanently_. 

Though, of course there were no paper screens here; your husband’s kingdom had bloomed in the hole left by the crumbling Shimada and for that he vowed to make it the perfect opposite. It was remarkably harder to associate this behemoth of concrete and steel –where the only real link to the past was the stone swordwall wrapped around the grounds– to the idea of ghosts as a whole, but you did try your best.

You supposed that was why Ichiro, first born, first honored of the Kasahara, tolerated your constant slipping out the back gate to wander around the city. More than one maid had jumped almost out of her skin at suddenly finding your empty expression at the turn of a corner, and heavens knew your husband preferred having you out of the house over having to train more help.

After all, you were always back in your cage before he returned from whatever businesses occupied his time. And he had made sure you wouldn’t want to make the trek up the hill to see Shimada castle as it slowly rusted the same color as the blood that built it.

But in the end, as if to laugh at your husband’s caution, you didn’t really need to go up there to see _him_. Here he was, cowering under the roof of a taiyaki cart in the middle of Hanamura’s red light district: Hanzo Shimada himself, a stranger freezing in the rain. 

And you were rooted to the spot at the sight of him, a dark sort of satisfaction flooding your mouth. You’d heard the rumors for years, of the lost dragon of Hanamura returning home on the anniversary of the night he killed his brother.

For years you tried not to mind that talk. Certainly, the heir of the Shimada regretted cutting down the sparrow and tossing his entire family out for their rivals to make easy pickings of; on the other hand, he had no reason to feel any guilt for escaping an arranged marriage with you, and you were mostly able to convince yourself that it was stupid to be jealous of a building.

But even if you tried to be an adult about it more times than not, you couldn’t help the smile that pulled at your lips, looking at the man who was supposed to run this place tremble almost imperceptibly in this weather.

_Serves him right_ , said a poisonous voice in your mind and it was that rush of blind contempt that finally got your feet moving again.

“Young master,” confusion flit over his expression for half a second before your memory solidified, his shoulders relaxing minutely before tensing for an entirely different reason under your umbrella.

He hadn’t known you all that well, you’d been nothing but a sweet, quiet thing, handpicked by his aunts and approved by his uncles to marry him as soon as he took the seat. But you were certain he would recognize the tone of your voice and your blank, agreeable expression. If only because he was taught to pantomime the same kind of politeness himself.

Your name stumbled out of his mouth, which in all honesty was far more than you had expected. You had hoped for it, sure, because between being stuck in the palace or in the hospital you had had so much free time this past decade that you had turned daydreaming into a hobby. A game of make believe, where Hanzo never left and you didn’t have to be traded into another clan to ensure the safety and privileges of his, _your_ , family.

Logic had always pointed at your life going the exact same road no matter which husband had taken you in the end, but escapism liked to pretend that the golden honor of the Shimada hadn’t been a lie.

“No one has called me ‘young master’ in years,” Hanzo answered, his voice low and face calm; like speaking in a dream.

“Well, we aren’t exactly young anymore.”

Your laugh sounded unsettlingly practiced even to you, and the pleasure you took in the hint of a grimace peeking behind his neutral body language made you nearly nauseous. This time he was the one who didn’t know where he stood; not only because he clearly had no foothold in Hanamura anymore, but because he had to appraise the level of danger you posed for him.

Your grin at that was real, he was already forced to pay this much attention to you and he hadn’t even seen your security detail.

“Would you like to join me for a drink?”

You pressed your luck, testing the casual confidence in your voice against Hanzo’s intuition. If he was half the man you remembered, either the heir or the assassin in him would pick up on it being far more than that. You could read his train of thought as it happened –even if your traitor heart found his extremely mobile face endearing–, feel the sting of his curiosity. Bodyguards or not, you still looked the part, so well in fact, that, back in the day, he may have mistaken you for one of his.

“Some other time then,” you shrugged, “I imagine it would be upsetting to the remaining Shimada to know that their lost heir is more popular than they are, anyway.”

You dangled that temptation openly for him to take, tasting his questions as if they had fallen from the tip of his tongue onto yours, syrup thick with displeasure. The Hanzo you had known wouldn’t be able to help rising to the challenge in your eyes, the mockery edging its way into your mild mannered smile.

“Here?”

He ground out the word through gritted teeth, his frown deepening with disgust. It was almost cute how he expected you to be shamed by the neighborhood he had found you in, a Shimada unchanging as his city. Well, your city now, if only by association.

“Take your pick,” this time the sweetness in your voice was honest as you gestured to the street, lined with less than reputable bars.

You guessed, if Hanzo was a man capable of balking, he would’ve; you bet that on his pride. The heir of the Shimada wouldn’t have been caught dead in this side of the city without a good excuse, which might explain why you vaguely recognized the watering hole he finally settled on as one of his brother’s old haunts.

You on the other hand, no one would give a damn about seeing wandering around this district; not after you managed to squirrel away some errands beyond escorting Kenji –beloved, healthy Kasahara heir– to playdates. Ichiro had allowed you to take care of the men he didn’t like to do business with; now the offenders of whatever esoteric code of conduct your husband chose to enforce over his illegal dealings would inevitably fall onto your lap and into the backroom of one of these bars. 

These had become your safe havens, and you felt secure in the assumption that no one would, for example, set security cameras in those rooms. And that it could be assumed then, that when the owner saw you walk straight into your usual reserved room with a sour looking man in tow, he would just take Hanzo as one more of Ichiro’s pariahs. You admitted that was what made you so familiar, as jokingly casual as the sparrow had been about his dislike of you back in the day.

“These years have been prosperous,” Hanzo’s words were directed mostly at the back of your head as you settled in and ordered a bottle.

There was an edge to them, like a fingertip over a bruise, testing for a sore spot. You could assume what he was angling at, he might as well ask you whose bed you had fallen into after the marriage went to shit; which, more than a barb, was almost a joke.

“Hanamura’s been good to us.”

“Us?”

“The Kasahara.”

You guessed Hanzo would only vaguely remember the Kasahara scion but the man you were once supposed to keep had always found contemptible that Ichiro had his position announced at birth, like it would exempt him of proving he deserved it. So you watched for the tightening of his jaw at the thought of the Shimada folding to his rule so easily.

“It’s to your family’s credit, honestly,” your voice betrayed nothing but you were sure he could feel the poison in the words either way, “if they had decided to oppose the Kasahara it would’ve left both clans on very unsteady ground.”

Your eyes met his over the table for a second before your gaze dipped to follow the dragon down along his arm –his jacket laid discarded beside him, with his bag and bow– and the sight sent a surprising rush of heat down your spine. You poured his sake for him before turning to your own cup, let the alcohol warm your blood, sharpening the casual cruelty of paying in kind the infamous dismissal of the Shimada, and made it the perfect excuse for the unreasonable impulse to keep Hanzo looking at you.

The clearest memory you had of him was a cliché; a first meeting in full spring, with the cherry blossoms the Shimada were so proud of fluttering in the background. You remembered feeling vaguely uncomfortable: too old for your furisode, too aware that you were being shoved on the heir as an ultimatum.

He was a good son, accomplished at the family business but with no particularly outstanding feats that could justify not finding a wife yet. So you were brought in to marry him as soon as the succession was made official and no one doubted you could give him an heir within the first year. You were both eldest children, both well behaved, and of the candidates presented to the clan, you were the only one closer to his own age.

Your name was called, he looked at you from the dais –mostly uninterested, hardly nodding in acknowledgement– and you felt a relief so violent you almost broke protocol. The lesser impression you caused, the lesser the chances for him to be cruel.

But if you had ever misguidedly wondered what it would feel like to have Hanzo’s undivided attention, you now had your answer. Either his gaze over the rim of his cup was far heavier than he realized or he didn’t feel he had to be subtle, barely there girl as you were.

The thought was unbearable for all of half a second, heartburn in the pit of your stomach and a curse like a hot stone over your tongue. You had to swallow your nausea –feel it slide hard candy smooth down your throat– because this wasn’t supposed to be a wound, especially not one so raw to still make you tear up with sheer fucking humiliation ten years in.

It made you want to impress him, to force him to see you, what the Shimada had made of you.


	2. regrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hanzo has learned to expect many things, you're not one of them, but that's mostly because he never really thought about you all that much.

Hanamura was not the type of city to change, Hanzo knew that as he knew his own nature.

The skyline had remained the same, sleepy neons that threatened to go out for good but held in the end, at least as far as Hanzo could see from this hill –which was a metaphor he thought may or may not apply to his own situation, if he had time or mental space to spare for it. He wasn’t about to deny that his normal route bypassed most of the urban sprawl, he kept to the outskirts simply because it was faster and easier to get where he needed to be.

It wasn’t surprising then to find himself in this predicament, recognizing enough of the streets below to know that the red light district would have the most discreet and affordable rooms for rent, but not enough to know exactly where they would be.

Hanzo had loved Hanamura once, which in part explained why he hadn’t really looked at the city these past ten years, he had preferred it as a blur of lights instead of a painful jumble of memories, memories he, for the most part, didn’t deserve to keep. He made his way to the castle in a haze of tunnel vision, he was there for a reason until said reason had been stripped from him –leave it to Genji to take his purpose and twist it until it was so unrecognizable it no longer mattered– and Hanzo was left with nothing but the scenery.

If there was no duty left to tether him the only thing still his in Hanamura was a strange, bitter nostalgia for the man he could’ve been; they both could’ve been.

It was clear after all, that if there was one difference in this place, it would be the position of his family in it, even if the castle remained untouched and empty. Someone must’ve made a good deal to keep it that way, Hanzo wondered how much of his family’s fortune ended up in the hands of the reigning clan; scrapping at the bottom of the treasury would at least account for the lousy guards he had encountered over the years.

He wasn’t about to deny that the image of his uncles and aunts suddenly finding themselves in downtown apartments, having to air out their own bedding, made him laugh out loud; but it was still disconcerting to imagine the Shimada as destitute. And, as if to punish him for the thought, his huff of laughter was followed by a low rumble of thunder and a sudden spring rain so thick he hardly had time to rush along for cover, stuck halfway down the stairs leading down into the chaotic streets of Hanamura’s nightlife district as he was.

His boots splashed almost instantly in the downpour and the descent was half flinching at the fat, freezing drops and half compensating the constant slipping on wet rock until he finally slammed into the unexpected barrier that announced the city. The scent of what seemed like a good hundred restaurants wrapped around him, fried and soup and all spectrums of salty and sweet; so intense his stomach growled against his will as he hit the comparative stability of asphalt.

That’s why he chose the cursed taiyaki cart you had found him under, luckily after he had finished stuffing the last bite of simple, comforting bread in his mouth. He had taken a single step on the very edge of his shelter, expecting the cold of rain again, only to find a face he vaguely recognized holding an umbrella over his head and all he could really think of is that Genji would’ve been a better fit for this, open to casual conversation and easily liked.

He used to bother him about it, didn’t he? Anything Hanzo had had to say to his brother that last year – _before_ – was met with a teasing remark about how he could better use his time to make nice with you. Genji, sarcastic and unthinking and free of the responsibilities that fell to Hanzo, could turn even his disgust into a palatable joke.

Truth be told, he hadn’t cared much about you, figured he’d have the chance to get acquainted after the wedding; your family had been under the protection of the clan for long enough that it was rumored there was common blood down your line. Under the rule of tradition, you couldn’t have been too different from him: bound to duty to the bitter end.

He also hadn’t paid much mind to whatever had happened to you after he left, you were on good days a blur in his peripheral. Mostly, through no fault of your own, he just didn’t think of you.

Ten years later and forced to notice you, he had to admit you had fared far better than him.

Whoever you were now, you had enough power to think you could play with him, as if his family’s name meant nothing, his work even less; you had kept a steady income and a comfortable little place built on the ashes of the Shimada and you probably hadn’t had to kill your brother to do it.

Perhaps it was that that made Hanzo completely unable to take his eyes off you as you lead him into the backroom of a seedy bar and ordered their best sake; perhaps it was just an animal sort of pride that called dibs on you over Ichiro Kasahara, a man so unremarkable he wasn’t sure if he was remembering him correctly.

You’d kept your beauty too, if sharpened by age. Back then you had been all soft edges and innocence, a little stiff but the sort of shy he had been taught to find endearing. Now your throat drew a tempting line, the collar of your blouse high in the front but invitingly lower in the back, purposefully showing off the soft nape of your neck; and he had to wonder when was the last time anything about you had been accidental.

You were damn near jarring, alive and laughing as you told stories of the old Hanamura, when what he remembered of you was mostly demure silence. Your posturing diluted with the alcohol, not enough for Hanzo to tell if this was closer to your real personality but enough to soften the icy edge of privilege. You reminded him so much of his younger self that he felt a sharp shock of satisfaction he didn’t recognize as arousal until it was a tight ball of pressure on his lower abdomen.

You had become exactly the wife he would’ve needed as the Shimada heir, the wife he _deserved_ and the part of him that didn’t ache to claim what could’ve been for himself saw it as another insult. This could’ve been his city and his life, but it wasn’t; it was just him drinking on your coin like it would mean a goddamn thing for someone in your shoes.

“This is nicer than I could’ve imagined,” you commented under your breath, watching him, cat smug and almost playful, never close enough to touch even after most of the bottle was gone, “there’s some stories I can’t ever bring up in this town. You’d remember, though.”

“Stories?” he took the bait, straining to gauge the smile you kept just this side of bitter for your answer.

“Of sparrows escaping their cages,” your words weren’t as mindful either, after the sake, “or that first time you kissed me, frowning, like it was such a difficult thing to do.”

This wasn’t like the brief glimpses of anger he’d seen behind practiced politeness, this was resentment full and heavy on your lips, hanging over your heads like overripe fruit waiting to drop. You met his eyes, a flicker of something wild clear on your expression, the unspoken jab of how starkly your roles had reversed, the question of how easy he’d choose to kiss you now and the answer clear as day for both of you.

So he leant over the low table and did just that. For all his dark thoughts, for all his wounded pride, Hanzo’s hand was gentle on you, his fingers brushed against your cheek, and you moved with him; your face turned, half flinching like you didn’t expect tenderness. It was an uncomfortable thought for the space of time it took you to reach for him, one hand warm over his tattoo and the other a tight fist pulling at his undershirt until he was kissing a gasp out of you.

You tasted of alcohol, but you kissed him back; laughed loud and surprised, so tinged with hysteria that he tasted a thrill of panic on your tongue and the hair trigger for anger that turned tugging on his shirt to tugging at his hair, your kiss into crashing teeth.

“Tell me you have a condom.”

You were infuriating, but he turned to rummage in his bag anyway, half focused on you rounding the table to meet him, bunching up the fabric of your skirt so that the first thing his hands reached of you was the wet, welcoming fabric of your underwear. And fuck it all, Hanzo took a moment to catch your eyes digging his fingers into lace and tugging to make his intentions clear; you nodded with a chuckle that was lost in the loud shredding of probably very expensive panties.

You didn’t fight him as he pulled you back onto your knees and maneuvered your hips so your chest ended up pressed into the table, caged between polish wood and his own bad decisions. He had to hold you still one handed to pull his cock out, reach for the foil package in his bag and roll the condom on, but then you were taking him in with a groan, surprisingly tight at first but pushing roughly against him nonetheless.

“Eager,” he couldn’t help taunting you, shoving forward until he could settle both palms on each side of your body, trying to find a position that let him match your aggression.

He didn’t expect you to laugh again, smart hands dipping to feel how he spread you open for him. Your nails dragged blunt over his thighs, fleeting and so unexpected his chest felt too full with something he couldn’t name but could surely pound into you until the pressure relented.

You were such a fucking cruel thing, lighting a fire in the pit of his stomach –angry and vindictive and completely useless– even as you tightened around him, legs shaking, cold fingers digging into his forearm and lips suddenly light over the ink of his dragons, affectionate if he closed his eyes and pretended.

An irrational sort of pleasure made him nuzzle the back of your neck, falling after you, almost breathless as he filled the condom.

The peace of the aftermath didn’t last, it was never meant to; honestly, saying that he didn’t expect you to be gone by the time he straightened himself and grabbed his shit to try and sidestep the shame for the moment being would be a lie. You had gone to the front to pay, so he fully expected the dismissal of empty streets, as if nothing had happened.

He stepped out of the bar, still with nowhere to stay in the winding streets of Hanamura, and into a wall of people. He could only register suits with the attention he was willing to pay, office men out for a party probably, until you leaned out of a parked car to call his name and the suits were immediately angled towards him, a full-fledged security detail. These men were clearly not funded from the same well that paid for the castle guards; they could be a problem if they wanted, if you wanted.

“Master Kasahara has been waiting for you, mistress,” one of your bodyguards made to move between you but stopped at one gesture from you.

“In a rare caring mood about his wife, isn’t he?” you stared at Hanzo instead, waiting for a reaction you must’ve gotten, because you followed it with sarcasm. “What? You thought I was a common whore?”


	3. the price of peace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hanzo's tired of your shit, he's tired of _his own_ shit, but he can't stop.

Hanzo was no stranger to shame; even when he had thought he stood over it, he knew it, he despised it and he had ended up falling square into it by trying his damnedest to avoid it. He was no idiot, well aware he’d regret thrusting into his own fist in the bathroom of this rented room to try and get your voice out of his head; your skin, the linen of your skirt brushing sweet against his thighs.

Still, he reveled in it, the childish sin of longing for a life that wasn’t his, digging into the wound of knowing he wasn’t a man meant to _want_ things. It was such a late insight into his brother’s mindset back in the day, the simplicity of desire, that he’d forgotten he wasn’t ever built for simple, he wasn’t Genji.

You were long gone, probably sleeping soundly in Kasahara’s bed; this, he realized, was an exercise in reeling in his mind as it slipped on the minimum concession. Once he had permitted it to pick and choose at the parts of you that it needed to masturbate, he discovered it now insisted to amplify the little gestures, to wonder about the rest of you, floating up from long discarded memories.

The girl he remembered was much more like the version of you he happened to run into the next morning, almost like he summoned it in the languid light of noon; picture perfect, hair coiled by the nape of your neck and a mild smile for both the man standing beside you and the child that pretty much hung from his hand.

You met his eyes over the head of the boy, a flicker of something suddenly –unfairly– innocent with recognition filled your expression and Hanzo barely kept himself from surging forward; caught in that look for long enough to allow the man to spot him. Kasahara’s bland face turning into a sort of mockery he couldn’t quite keep from his tone.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve seen the heir of the Shimada, hasn’t it?” your husband’s hand fell possessive over your waist and Hanzo couldn’t help but follow the movement.

If Hanzo had to admit it, he’d say he just never thought of you as enough of a bargaining piece to land you here. For Kasahara though, it must’ve made sense; adding insult to injury in a way, or maybe the man just figured he deserved at the very least what Hanzo had. In business, the city; and you, for a wife.

“Well, you know spring in Hanamura,” you took a smooth step out of Kasahara’s reach, “it always brings surprises.”

Kasahara took your commentary like a beloved cat dragging a dying mouse into the house, with a questioning look and his hands running gentle down your arms before he moved on to offer Hanzo his full attention. The boy, who looked uncannily like him, simply bowed in acknowledgement.

“That it does.”

Kasahara wasn’t exactly confrontational, just aggressively confident as he welcomed him back to the city, standing there with his impeccable family. It was to an omnic’s credit, an attendant from the car parked nearby with a phone call for your husband, and its impeccable timing for interruptions that Hanzo sidestepped the impulse to very rudely ask to be left the hell alone.

He wouldn’t give you the satisfaction of making a scene.

“Business?” you stood stock still, a flash of uncertainty in your expression.

“Yes,” whatever was whispered in Kasahara’s ear was sufficiently urgent for him to declare the meeting over and leave you behind with a simple kiss to the cheekbone, following the omnic as it guided the child into the car, “I’m gonna have to rely on you for the meeting of the old clans, this is important.”

The man didn’t wait for your answer to close the door in favor of whoever it was on the other end of the line, so you addressed Hanzo instead, sure that you couldn’t be heard over the speeding vehicle.

“I’m sorry.”

The words out of your mouth were about the only thing that could still floor him, which only sent him further into tunnel vision. What kind of idiot did you take him for? That you dared apologize like you were still the scared girl promised to him damn near made him dry heave.

“You fucking fox,” the insult felt soft and golden in his mouth, like honey. ”Wasn’t a night enough for dishonoring your husband’s bed? Your heir?”

There was a special kind of cosmic cruelty in finding you here, husband and kid in tow. It had been a while since Hanzo felt the hole of uncertainty open at his feet –over a year, since Genji had reappeared like his conscience personified– so his muscles were almost singing with the irrational anger it brought; the promise of violence and how, when it came to you, it pulled at his libido.

He couldn’t even spend a day in what used to be his home without you dangling in his face how _you_ had risen to duty, you had done shit _right_.

“I knowingly withheld information and that was a disservice to you,” you laughed, and it seemed involuntary, almost surprised, “for that I’m sorry, not for fucking you.”

There was something unsaid in that answer, your eyes went from him to the direction the car had disappeared in, to Shimada castle in the distance, doubt clear in that gaze, mirroring his for the space of a micro expression before the steel mask fell again over your face.

“I used to think about it a lot, you know? Fucking you…I guess it’s not that strange of a fantasy for a brood mare.”

The term kicked at his conscience in a way he didn’t expect, turned his stomach because he couldn’t deny that you were expected to produce an heir as soon as the marriage was solidified. He couldn’t hide from his own mind that he was just wondering why the Kasahara scion was so young, counting back on the possible years of your relationship; he was fully aware that you saw the guilt in his posture too.

“I touched myself to the thought of you the night before the final kimono fitting, that’s the only way I got through it I think.”

Hanzo flinched, too much time on his own had both made him an ascetic and worsened his violent streak, and he sure as fuck didn’t want the vague image of you in a wedding kimono suddenly colored by the knowledge of the sounds of you falling apart around him. So he reached for your arm, mostly to try and stop you. Having you stumble into him, tucked against his body from collarbone to hip, was a victory in and of itself. There was no casual excuses to step away, no passive acceptance; only your fingers, cold even through his clothes, palms flat over his stomach as you struggled to regain your balance.

“Silence.”

He was tired of your bullshit, so _so_ tired. He did not fucking need this, and he was exhausted of not being able to resist it; this was the most involved his mind had been in a while, his body slowly reacquainted with the adrenaline of this game. The thrill of non physical conflict, something he had been so well trained in, nearly made him sick with the temptation to fall back on the old identity of Heir of the Shimada that he could no longer allow himself to be.

“Make me,” the words were more playful than angry this time, even if there was fire in your eyes.

He moved, pulling you with him, eyes closed tight for a moment to weather the impulse to read fondness in you and how it made him harder that he’d care to admit. You didn’t pull away or complain –or fall, he had to commend you for that– until he was tugging you along the same back stairway he had rushed down just the night before.

“The castle?”

Hanzo stopped, let you crash against him, winded and flushed, milking whatever little satisfaction he could from the sight.

“You wanted me to fuck you there?” he pointed up, to the rusted door that gave him access to the grounds, “I’ll fuck you there so we can be done with this nonsense.”

He expected you to laugh, it was a useless barb after all, or to be offended as his dignity demanded; he didn’t anticipate the slow, deliberate angling of your body so you could kiss him as casually as Kasahara had done to you.

“Very magnanimous of you,” you had the gall to shoulder check him as you started up the stairs again.

If he had to pinpoint a reason for climbing the gate and manhandling you over it when he still had a fully operational key, that would be first and keeping yourselves from being noticed by the guards would come in second. You were lucky this security detail kept to the front entrance, _he_ was so goddamn lucky since you kept making the work of sneaking into the higher rooms difficult with smart fingers brushing at whatever skin you could reach and then unzipping and shoving his clothes aside.

He grabbed at yours in turn, doing his best to wrinkle the fabric –your skirt made of cotton this time, heavy, to keep the midmorning chill at bay– to let your husband know he didn’t own you like he thought he did. Sweater and jacket and skirt trailed across the tatami, tripping him till he gave up, settling over the closest open space with you under him, grabbing at his erection to guide him inside you, arching into the feeling of bare flesh. He curled over you, and you turned post verbal but for the way you mumbled his name, gasping at his rough pace and clinging to his arm, obsessed with the tattooed dragons over his shoulder.

“Let me,” you managed, and he didn’t know what you meant, “let me.”

Your hand on his hair pulled him from where he was panting against your shoulder to meet your lips instead, you planted your feet and pushed your hips forward, into him, taking him deep and tight and raw and he was spilling before he even knew it. He stayed where he was, oversensitive while you rocked your hips one more time and tensed around him, sobbing into his mouth and falling back so he could straighten up to try and catch his breath.

Hanzo’s hand settled over your stomach, much more to steady himself than as any form of comfort, and he frowned as his fingertip caught on a scar below your belly button; one of a set of quadruplets, another over each hipbone and the last just above the crest of your pubis.

He looked up to find your eyes on him, still inside you, and he didn’t see the ghost of his past, he didn’t see the wife he was supposed to have. In the silence of this aftermath, all he saw was you, a woman as fucked up as he was.


	4. comfort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You never expected the Hanzo in your head to meet the real Hanzo, especially not with a storm bearing down on the horizon of Hanamura.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've added some warning tags, so you might wanna check them before diving in, it's all mostly mentioned in passing but yeah

You used to think of him, from time to time, when you masturbated. You lied to yourself in the deafening chatter of crickets and you pretended he could have loved you. The idea made you laugh once, like a joke you no longer remembered the punchline to; now all just a flat, vaguely coherent collection of words: Hanzo would have loved you, _someone_ would have loved you. Every syllable a step closer to disappearing for good, sure in the knowledge that if you did, there was no one to come looking for you, no matter how much you made believe.

Here, though, with Hanzo’s eyes on you, staring through the shining flecks of dust –the past of Shimada castle disturbed and rattled in your desperation– you were suddenly, terribly tangible. An empty space, not waiting to be filled, just recognized by another empty space of pounding heart and calloused hands and an orgasm flush crawling all the way up to his ears, with a question clear as day in the way he looked at your scars. A hand reaching from his own vacuum, warm where you still held him.

He didn’t voice it, because of course he didn’t, but he smoothed his thumb over the raised flesh as he pulled out and the impulse was irresistible.

“Hysterectomy,” the word came out unbroken, bland as a comment on the weather, pain reduced to small talk.

“Why?”

You took back the shirt that Hanzo offered, the underwear and the skirt, brushing fingers a little longer than necessary as an excuse to stretch the silence until you were fully convinced your answer wouldn’t involve tears, angry or otherwise.

“I wasn’t using it anyway.”

He was far kinder on the way out and it was only when he set you down at the top of the stairs, on the other side of the gate, that you realized you were still full of his cum. You winced at the uncomfortable sliding, snorted a laugh at how little it mattered, how your bones felt hollow of the fear that had been a near constant for most of your life.

“What?” Hanzo’s voice was close, close enough to taste again, one more moment of madness for the road.

“You’re spilling out of me,” in the end you didn’t kiss the uncertainty out of his expression, just bumped your nose against his, easily excused as an accident, “I have to attend a meeting like this.”

A dumb, blissed out part of you wanted to tell him how he fucking made you wild, to ask him how long he’d be in Hanamura; a very different terror, deep and shapeless, was more than willing to beg him to stay. You didn’t, even if the thought of going back to your life made you want to drive one of Hanzo’s arrows into your throat; maybe after next time, you conceded, you’d wait if there was even a possibility of more.

Your particular brand of self destruction was usually much slower. Fox colored whiskey –the best, on Ichiro’s tap– and bullshitting slighted old criminals into thinking your husband was just busy. So if you downed too many spoons or got yourself shot because you had pushed the dumb, innocent woman show too far, they could pass it as an accident, a miscalculation, even a plot against the Kasahara.

At least this meeting with the old clans, as dropped on your lap as it was, kept you out of the obsessive twist of clinging to the thrill of Hanzo’s presence even after he took off to whatever he did during the day.

Ichiro’s bail outs were growing more and more constant in the last few months, whatever business he was brewing, whatever that ‘Max’ omnic kept calling him about was getting worrying to think about. Your husband had been catering specifically to this undisclosed business partner for a while, ‘catering’ being a very tame way of saying he was bending himself over backwards to please someone new to Hanamura and the old clans saw danger in that so clearly that you had started to panic at the thought too.

“Always an honor to see the mistress of the house.”

You took the sarcasm of the first man to see you walk into their old school conference room, some of these geezers were your crowd, came to your bars; some others thought themselves above that, resented the Kasahara’s practices, were old Shimada sympathizers, loyal to the end, who happened to not know you were currently filled of the dragon’s seed.

“Master Kasahara sends his apologies,” you smiled, content in that private pleasure, “something urgent came up.”

“Your husband’s just too busy with his new friends to meet with small fry like us, isn’t he?”

Someone else voiced their displeasure, tension disguised as humor that choked the room, wrinkled fingers busily working over prayer beads; the old guard of Hanamura, survivors of the omnic crisis, cunning, wealthy and casually cruel, had turned to their old gods. The sight sent a slow, freezing fear down your spine just imagining what they could ever be afraid of.

“Another crisis?”

You felt the question burst out of you before you could even think to hold it back. You could already guess at the answer; but you hoped, because you were still an idiot after all these years.

“Not if whatever’s out there listens,” answered the man with the beads, “we’re too fucking old to be hunting down those damn robots.”

The old man laughed, a soft sound that contradicted everything else about him, and downed the rest of the drink in his hands in unhurried sips, simply sitting in silence. No business was ever brought up, even when you prompted; the fact itself that it was you in there with them confirmed their worst suspicions, turned the reunion into a sort of celebration of whatever peace they still had.

You smiled through it, mooched off their booze and forced yourself to walk out of there like you could still feel the floor steady under you. The thought of going looking for Hanzo was tempting; there was no telling where he was, now that the sun had set and you were half buzzed, but you could’ve just walked around, wandered Hanamura, gotten lost and walked away from this bullshit. You called the driver instead, the window for escape had been firmly closed for the past 10 years and you had the heir of the Kasahara to worry about, if push came to shove you didn’t want him in town; trying to keep Kenji safe was the least you could do when he had saved your life.

_‘Why?’_ Hanzo’s fucking voice of all things slipped to the front of your mind. You hadn’t lied, still, telling him the full truth was an ache you wouldn’t face; you didn’t want to dig at the wound of how much of a disappointment you were in front of him. You hadn’t had an issue imagining how his comfort would feel after the first miscarriage, or the second, in fact you were pretty sure you would’ve died without it at the time. But that’s all it had been, a pipe dream –a _fever_ dream, after the third time–, born of childish needs. And it had ended with the surgery and the clump of Kasahara cells growing inside Ichiro’s mistress; a healthy child that wasn’t kicked out two months in by an unviable womb.

So it was very stupid of you to fall back into that slippery slope of thinking of Hanzo Shimada and feeding a fantasy with new memories, the feeling of his skin on yours, the way he had seen you that morning like he was actually _seeing_ you, because if you did, you’d end up crying there on the spot. You could feel it coming on already, breath only possible in short bursts as the street went hazy, wet at the edges of your vision.

The sound of your name in the near distance made you shake your head like a fucking spasm, the last thing you needed was to start hallucinating Hanzo’s voice, squeeze your eyes shut before you lost it for real.

“Oh shit.”

You half gasped, tried to weather the very physical sensation of a warm palm –a calloused goddamn hand– familiar and commanding, grabbing at your elbow, not pulling or moving, just there steady, for _you_. He called out to you again and the first thing you saw when you dared open your eyes was his shoes through the water caught in your lashes, those ugly damn boots that had probably seen better days and whose state should not make you think of yourself but did.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” you attempted to get the hiccup in your chest under control, checked the road to see absolutely no sign of the car that was supposed to prevent this exact kind of public breakdown, not that there was anyone but Hanzo to witness at the moment.

“I followed you.”

He took a step forward and you face twisted into something that made him tug you a little further into the alley behind the building, away from the glow of the vending machines. The was a pinch to his brows, a softness in the corners of his eyes that made him look far younger, a bit lost too; he let you back into the wall, walked with you, never taking his hand off you, frowning like he cared. And you couldn’t stop, could barely do your best not to sob outright.

You reached blindly for his shoulder, ignoring both the black car cruising past and the phone vibrating in your grip, found a fistful of jacket and held on like a lifeline.


	5. the storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was no secret that Hanzo's primary catalyst was anger -at Genji, at himself, at you- but it had been a long while since he had been angry at his circumstances.

Longing for another person was a shapeless thing for Hanzo, never something he was really comfortable with; sure, he yearned for _things_ : this city, the castle, food and sounds and the reality of Hanamura. Even the way he mourned Genji had been more about missing the ideal brother he could’ve been, gradually turning into nostalgia for the man Genji actually was.

So he didn’t exactly know how to deal with the pull in his chest as you walked away from the intersection that afternoon. He hadn’t intended it in the beginning, to follow you, had never imagined he’d end up shielding you –because that’s what he was doing, it hit him belatedly– as you cried in a back alley, but he stepped closer anyway, let his chest brush against yours.

“I’m sorry,” you outright mumbled between gasps and part of him hoped to be simply projecting the meaning he had always given to those words onto you; the things he repeated to himself on bad days: _I’m useless, I’m worthless, I’m sorry_.

It’s the way he was raised, that _you_ were raised. Second place was nothing but the number one loser as far as the elite of Hanamura was concerned. Maybe that was why he held on, when you attempted to curl into yourself, kept your hand in his with only the background noise of your phone going off again and again between you.

“Breathe.”

He said and you did, drawn out, stuttering things that made the tears on your lashes shake. Your fingers pressed cold against the very tips of his in the awkward position where he was mostly grabbing your wrist. Half a second of peace slowly settling in before the same omnic from earlier, Kasahara’s omnic, turned into the alley, gun at the ready.

It still shocked Hanzo, once in a while, the casual ease of omnics using tools, as if his animal brain expected them not to need them. Especially when it came weapons, he figured that amount of metal should be deadly enough on it’s own.

“Mistress,” the thing started, eyes trained on Hanzo but voice soft, “you weren’t answering your calls.”

“It’s okay, Hiromitsu.”

Your response came slow, consciously approximating calm, but you didn’t move, didn’t even allow Hanzo to ready himself for a fight; which inevitably led the omnic’s attention to your hands.

“Shimada Hanzo,” it spoke without a single change in tone and Hanzo tried his best not to flinch at his name.

The machine finally looked at you, clicked off an earpiece and tucked the gun back in a coat pocket; more things it shouldn’t need, added to the pile with the way it stared at you, like a human, like it knew something about you that had been otherwise gone unsaid.

At this distance, Hanzo could feel your chest tightening again a second earlier that he heard the repressed sob and how you could make it pass as a cough if you weren’t still shaking.

“I’m sorry,” it –Hiromitsu, you had called it– sounded honest as it reached for you, “we have to go.”

He had to fight the irrational impulse to stop you, to not take his hands off you until you told him what the old allies, or Kasahara for that matter, had done to you.

Hanzo was fully aware that he was nothing in this town anymore, little less to you, but a fucked up voice in his head wanted to know what could be bad enough to put sympathy in an omnic’s gaze. An even weirder thought was dead set on being rabid fucking mad about it, to believe that there could be a life away from this shit, from Hanamura and its horrible history; for you or for himself.

Hope was something he considered given up on years ago, lost among the obsession with making amends that led nowhere but to self recrimination and excessive drinking, way before Genji had shown up and the point was declared officially moot. But you joined the omnic, let it lead you to the car and here Hanzo was, so sick of shame –yours, his, the Shimada’s; some deserved and some simply inherited– that he dared want for more.

The sole idea was terrifying, it contradicted the desire that had ruled him for over a decade. In many ways, Hanzo had died that night with the brother he murdered, and the rest of him was just playing catch up. Now this teenager kind of rebellion, sudden, burning an acid hole on his tongue refused to lie down and take it. This was a different ledge, he was never too good at talking himself down from anger.

…

The ride was quiet, the soft hum of the car only broken by the repeated apologies from Hiromitsu.

“I’m really sorry,” his voice was always steady and pleasant, you suspected as a leftover from his days as a service omnic, before whatever had happened to make him more of a person than you.

“I know, it’s not your fault.”

You did, there was no soul you could trust in the Kasahara beyond Hiromitsu. He was the one tasked with babysitting you from the start, the one who had seen the worst of everything, the one you still credited with convincing Ichiro to let the hospital staff save your life instead of your uterus after the last time.

“Still,” he insisted, immobile next to you, tense as you crossed into the Kasahara swordwall, “I should have turned the audio off earlier.”

“He would’ve found out anyway, he always does, with the way this town sucks his cock.”

Hiromitsu laughed, and this was one of your few pleasures. The private running your mouth about your husband to someone who wasn’t afraid to die by his hand; whatever tied Hiromitsu to Ichiro was far beyond your understanding, but at least it wasn’t either the fear or hero worship the Kasahara usually inspired.

It was short lived though, turned into the sour drop of your stomach when you walked into the house to find Ichiro stationed at his office as he loved to do, door open so he could stare at you from his favorite armchair with a drink in his hand.

You tried not to flinch, did an actually damn real good job of it even with Hiromitsu’s amplified voice coming from the computer behind your husband, speaking Hanzo’s name.

“You know, when I asked you to meet the old allies in my place,” Ichiro laughed, taking his time to get up and join you where you stood, exhausted, in the middle of the hall, “I didn’t exactly mean to give you permission for a tryst with the dragon of the Shimada.”

Your husband’s free hand fell on you soft, deceivingly gentle like his eyes weren’t boring holes into you, so pissed that it almost made you laugh in his face just to provoke him. Fuck him and his empire, fuck his money and his power and his heir. Fuck anything he thought he could do to you to further break you when you had already proven to be too stupid, too caught in tradition to fight back.

“I’ve tried to be a good husband,” Ichiro pressed the words into the crown of your head, his fingertips skating down your back in some warped approximation of a caress, “I give you an allowance, I don’t hit you, I don’t lock you in the house. Don’t make me start, beloved.”

He didn’t even wait for an answer before leaving you there, he didn’t need to when his word was law in this house, in this entire town.

…

Rikimaru was always lively, even eleven years without the Shimada sparrow’s patronage, Hanzo could at least be glad for that. He could still blend in, in a way, sit down to eat among the rush of dozens of orders and shouts in varying degrees of intoxication, without more recognition than the exact order he used to have with Genji served to him as soon as he found a seat.

The owner even nodded in his direction, half hidden where he barked about the kitchen, handing full plates to a twenty something girl, whose face reminded Hanzo of someone he couldn’t quite place at the moment.

It bothered him for no real reason, the vague notion of those features; the phantom of them on another person. It would’ve continued to do so if he had had the opportunity to even finish his food in peace, rather than discovering himself accosted by the same omnic twice that night.

“Shimada Hanzo,” the tone was the same, which maybe Hanzo should’ve expected from it, and he did not grace it with a response, “would you mind me asking about your relationship with mistress Kasahara?”

The question felt more like an accusation, a probe to get him to admit to it, whatever this sudden thing he didn’t even have words to properly describe was. So he stayed silent out of spite, dug a little too aggressively into his ramen.

“You were comforting her.”

The omnic managed to make it sound concerned again, the last straw that forced Hanzo to abandon his fucking food and the only place in Hanamura where the positive memories outweighed the bad.

He stood to rummage in his pockets for money, exasperation clear enough in his body language for the machine to get the hint and move on from him to the girl serving the plates. She stopped dead in her tracks at the sight of it and it finally clicked in Hanzo's mind, a second after leaving the restaurant. She had the same cautiously curious expression as the young heir of the Kasahara.


	6. sparrow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of all the things you had daydreamed about, just so you wouldn't go mad in this life you had been dealt, an apology from Genji Shimada had never even crossed your mind.

The house was quiet, in the dark, the kind of late night silence that was only broken by the fish in the pond and the footsteps of whatever poor bastard was on duty for the day. It was not a peaceful thing, though, nothing in the Kasahara castle was; it weighed like your wedding kimono had on the day, like the migraines you used to get as a teenager, more annoyance than pain.

It made you restless, sitting in your room in bed clothes as if you had ever planned on sleeping, as if it was a possibility at all. You had dug into the old pieces of your bride’s attire, instead; underneath the headdress bent and thrown across the room and the long strips of torn silk around you, until you found the iron ribs of the fan someone or other had gifted you a life time before.

You were supposed to be trained in using it to defend yourself, not that much of it remained in your memory. You were mostly looking for some pathetic sort of comfort, imagining the impossible crack of Ichiro’s skull under the pressure. It was a fantasy you hadn’t turned to in years, not since your husband had brought a pink faced, wailing bundle to the house, had settled him in your arms and thrown a party for you, for your second chance at proving yourself capable.

Things had gotten chaotic after that, lonely too, with Hiromitsu suddenly too busy with babysitting and the soft hands of old maids ready to take over Kenji’s upbringing at the most minimal sign of uncertainty. You were the problem, you were untrustworthy and Ichiro made no secret that he kept you around because his mistress wouldn’t look the part of the wife he deserved.

At least all that time alone let you soften the edges of the world with alcohol, at least the fact that you needed to be seen with this new precious heir let you out of your room; you had been a little too preoccupied to daydream about killing your husband.

It felt right now, though, as right as it felt to slam the fan down onto the hand that seemed to appear out of thin air on your shoulder; to roll away on the tatami after hearing the unmistakable ring of metal on metal behind you. You were still fast, out of practice enough to pant as you sat upright, as far as possible from the subtle green glow of neon lights that filled up the room, but quick enough to not die.

Said hand, followed by a metal arm –too smooth a movement to belong to an omnic–, reached for you, whoever was glued to them laughing a synthetized chuckle as he went.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle,” the voice seemed familiar in a strange way; as if you had dreamed of it once, like it sent the world off center when it sounded out your name.

He tried again, this time holding his palms up, apologetic. The movement tugged at your memory in a weird way, so did the shape of what you realized was a faceplate, a mask. _Armor._

“Please,” your name echoed in the room one more time, and whatever metaphorical container reality lived in full on dropped on its side and spilled all over. It was in a much more genuine tone than you had ever heard it, but you nearly threw up at recognizing that voice and the ghost of a forehead protector in the design of his faceplate.

You were not ashamed to admit that you crawled away further, scooting back on your ass and palms as fast as you could.

“Sparrow,” the nickname escaped you before you could form the thought correctly and realize how impossible it was for Genji Shimada himself to be alive, let alone in a guarded room and talking to you, of all people.

“I’m sorry,” it took him a moment to answer, another laugh, not an unkind one, not the mockery of the sparrow you remembered, “I didn’t expect you to recognize me this easily.”

The silence stretched, only soft humming and pounding heart in the space between both of your crouching stances, his preternaturally graceful and yours steadying slowly. You didn’t ask why, didn’t approximate a how in the face of a full body armor, the mechanized quality of Genji’s voice. _Quick enough to not die_ , you figured Genji Shimada would fit that definition perfectly too.

“Does your brother know?” the question you did verbalize gave him pause again, made you imagine his eyebrows meeting over his nose the way they used to, just like Hanzo’s.

“He does,” the answer came at last, and Genji moved to sit cross legged on the floor, patted the spot in front of him as an invitation, “but he doesn’t know I’m here, I wanted to ask something in private.”

“Not a tryst, I bet,” you remembered Genji’s ‘private conversations’, the beautiful girls who begged for five more minutes of his time and the snide commentary to Hanzo every time the sparrow caught sight of you together. _Guess you can’t miss pleasures you never allowed yourself to have, can you brother?_

“I’m not the man I was,” Genji looked down, extremely expressive for someone whose face was hidden, “I took the anger I felt at our family for deciding a life for us out on you, and the frustration I felt at Hanzo for allowing it.”

Of all the places you had ever gone in your mind –the absurd, unattainable shit you thought about in bed or the bath or long rides– an apology was never a part of them, not from Genji, or Ichiro, or _anyone_. You tried not to get stuck on that and how it felt on the skin, like your clothes were thinner than before, the cold more insidious than mere minutes ago.

“You have every right to hate me, but there’s danger coming to Hanamura, and I’d like to help you get out of the city, if you want.”

So Genji’s presence proved the old men of the Hanamura underground right; the same bone deep sense of unfairness rose in your throat, threatened to make you throw up all over the sparrow’s offer. If push came to shove, you’d be the first one your husband would choose to sacrifice, close to the top of the Kasahara structure to appease anyone who demanded it, though not really a loss he’d care about.

“Why? What do you get in return?” you didn’t realize you had asked him out loud until he was humming a thoughtful sound. Nothing ever came free in Hanamura, especially not kindness.

“It’s something I can do for you, so I want to do it” Genji chuckled as he moved, a steady rhythm of shikko towards you so he could land cold fingertips over the back of your hand, “you’re a lot like Hanzo, but your worth isn’t only what you can achieve, you’re valuable just because you exist.”

To the sparrow’s credit, it was only at about the minute mark of you simply staring back at him that he attempted to retreat his hand; and he barely flinched when you chased him, holding onto his wrist.

“Can Kenji come?”

…

Hanzo did his damnedest to keep his mind away from it, how it made sense, for the first thing you said in that moment of weakness to be an apology. It wasn’t right, but it made sense, for you to carry failure on your shoulders the way he did. You weren’t what you were supposed to be. _A brood mare_ , you had said, _I wasn’t using it anyway_ ; vague admissions of something you considered your fault.

He walked back to his rented room, took a long way around to at least tire his body enough to try and sleep. He didn’t want to sit alone with the phantom press of your hand in his; he even blamed Genji for the space of a thought. If Genji hadn’t screwed up, Hanzo wouldn’t have had to kill him and things would be as they were supposed to; but that was purposefully hurtful, not just to his brother but to himself, and you, too.

It didn’t stop, the going in circles, the sound of cars, the screaming of vendors that should drown out his self deprecation but only made him more on edge. He considered drinking but by that point he had already reached the building, had already noticed the now familiar figure crouched on the roof and waiting for him.

This version of his brother was definitely faster, his movements smoother than they used to be; this newfound grace didn’t seem to stop him from being the kid Hanzo remembered, since he still chose to slink in through his window like an oversized cat.

Hanzo couldn’t avoid following him inside. All his stuff was in the room, he was tired and maybe if he dealt with this he could be left alone to continue to be miserable in solitude.

“What do you want?” Hanzo spared enough energy to ask the question out loud instead of simply glaring, a cheap attempt at making sure Genji wouldn’t expect politeness on top of that.

“I told you, Hanzo,” the voice hadn’t lost its eeriness, well known but not quite right, though Hanzo chalked some of that up to having forgotten what his brother sounded like, “it’s time to take a stand.”

“So what? You’re here to recruit again?”

Genji didn’t answer for a long moment, enough for Hanzo to collect the dregs of his remaining arrogance; to shape them to hide the traitorous pang of disappointment at not being told he was forgiven again. The moment stretched, uncomfortable, until Genji laughed, strangely equalized, like the echo of their shouts down the well when they were boys.

“It’s much more like I’m righting a wrong, I hurt someone, the Shimada did, and now I have the opportunity to help.”

If Hanzo was still the man he was a decade ago, he would’ve knocked Genji out for that cryptic comment; as of now, he frowned, barely able to contain a sigh if only to save his pride. Then Genji said your name like it was the only explanation needed, and pride jumped out the window.

“What do you want with her?” his immediate, mostly unprovoked anger brought a smile to Genji’s eyes, a chuckle that could only mean he was wearing the same shit eating grin he always used to.

“Oh, I see why she asked me to fill you in.”

“Fill me into what, Genji?”

Hanzo was conscious of the slip into his old tone, the one he kept having to take with his brother when he didn’t listen to cajoling or warning or pleading. He mostly didn’t mind it, he was for the most part glad for the memory and, as a direct correlation, he was suddenly very glad for Genji’s stubborn refusal to die. One net positive out of this mess, which of course, with his luck, had to be ruined as soon as he had formulated the thought.

“She wanted me to let you know she’ll be dead by the end of the week.”


End file.
